Local elections: Parliamentary leader Pedro Pinto arrives as a candidate in Faro

Chega's parliamentary leader, Pedro Pinto, will be the party's candidate for mayor of Faro in the local elections on October 12, an official source told Lusa today.

According to the same source, the presentation of the candidacy "has not yet been scheduled", but it already has a slogan, adapting an expression from the American President, Donald Trump: "Make Faro great again".

Chega already had its candidacy on billboards throughout the city of Faro, with a photograph of the candidate alongside the party president, as is the case elsewhere in the country.

Pedro Pinto, a 48-year-old businessman, is the party's deputy director of the National Directorate, responsible for the general secretariat.

He was elected deputy on the Chega lists in the legislative elections of 2022, 2024 and 2025, always for the Faro electoral district.

Pedro Pinto has been the Chega party's parliamentary leader since 2022, having always been the sole candidate. The most recent election took place on June 25th, and he was elected with 85% of the vote.

In addition to the parliamentary leader, several Chega deputies are running in the local elections on October 12th.

In the last local elections, in 2021, Chega candidate Custódio Guerreiro ran for Faro City Council.

The race for the presidency of the Faro City Council, under PSD management since 2009, currently has three candidates to succeed the social democrat Rogério Bacalhau, who is prevented from running again due to the term limit law.

The candidates known so far are the social democrat Cristóvão Norte, the socialist António Miguel Pina and the communist Duarte Baltazar.

In the 2021 local elections, the coalition led by the PSD won with an absolute majority, with 47.76% of the votes, electing six of the nine councilors in dispute, while the PS came in second place, with 30.58%, guaranteeing the remaining three elected.

The Faro Municipal Assembly is composed of 31 members: 27 directly elected and four parish council presidents. The PSD and PS have the same number of representatives (10), followed by the CDU (three), the CDS-PP (two), Chega, BE, MPT, IL, and PPM (one elected each), and a former PAN deputy who became an independent.